Name: Chaogan (Pork Liver and Intestine in Thick Garlic Gravy)
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 1 h 50 min
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 500 g pork large intestine (chitterlings); 2 tbsp each flour and coarse salt; 2 tbsp vinegar; 1 thumb ginger; 2 spring onions; 1 star anise; 2 L water; 200 g pork liver; 10 cloves garlic; 2 tbsp light soy sauce; 1 tbsp dark soy sauce; 5 tbsp potato starch; salt; black vinegar; 8 small steamed pork buns (baozi)

Ingredients

4servings

Intestine
pork large intestine (chitterlings)500 g
flour and coarse salt · for cleaning2 tbsp each
vinegar · for cleaning2 tbsp
ginger · sliced1 thumb
spring onions2
star anise1
water2 L
Liver and finish
pork liver200 g
garlic · finely chopped10 cloves
light soy sauce2 tbsp
dark soy sauce · for colour1 tbsp
potato starch · mixed with 10 tbsp water5 tbsp
salt · to taste
black vinegar · a little at the table, optional
To serve
small steamed pork buns (baozi)8

Steps

Turn the intestine inside out and pull off the lumps of fat, then scrub it hard with the flour and coarse salt and rinse. Scrub once more with the vinegar and rinse.
Blanch in boiling water for 5 minutes, drain and rinse under cold water.
⏲ 5 min
Simmer the intestine in 2L water with the ginger, spring onions and star anise over low heat for 1 hour 30 minutes, until a chopstick goes in easily. Lift it out and cut into 1cm rings; strain the broth and keep 1.2L.
⏲ 90 min
Slice the liver thin, soak in cold water for 20 minutes to draw the blood, then blanch for 1 minute, just until the outside sets, and drain.
⏲ 1 min
Bring the strained broth to the boil with the intestine. Darken it with the light and dark soy, and add half the garlic.
⏲ 3 min
Stir the starch mixture again and pour it in a thin stream, stirring all the time, in two or three goes, until the gravy coats the back of a ladle thickly.
⏲ 2 min
Add the liver and the rest of the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Season with salt, fill the bowls to the brim and serve with the baozi.
⏲ 1 min

Variations

With black vinegar. A few drops at the table.
With yellow bean paste. Swap some of the soy for Beijing huangjiang for a deeper, nuttier gravy.
Intestine only. Some shops leave the liver out.
Other bread. A flat pan-fried youbing instead of baozi.

Tips

The cleaning decides the flavour. Flour, salt and vinegar scrubbed into the intestine are what take away the smell.
Blanch the liver apart and add it last. Boiled for long it turns dry and crumbly.
Pour the starch in a thin stream while stirring. Tipped in all at once it lumps.
Fill the bowl to the brim. It is drunk from the rim, so it goes out nearly overflowing.

More detail and the reasons why (2)

The starch is there so it can be drunk. Chaogan is a clear offal soup (baitang zasui) given colour with soy and thickened with starch, and in Beijing it is drunk without a spoon or chopsticks, turning the bowl and sipping round the rim. In a clear broth, drinking it that way would leave the intestine and liver at the bottom. Thickened with starch, the liquid holds the pieces in suspension so each sip brings them along (thickening). That is why it has to coat the back of a ladle thickly.
Two clocks in one pot. The intestine needs an hour and a half to soften; the liver cooks in moments and goes dry if it stays. For the same reason haggis keeps its liver down and kaldereta adds its liver last, the liver here is blanched separately and goes in only for the final minute. The buns served alongside are the same yeasted dough as char siu bao.

The basics behind this dish

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